


38th Parallel Universes

by PrairieDawn



Series: Welcome to 1951 [5]
Category: MASH (TV), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Brief Holocaust mention, Canonical Character Death, Discussion of Death and afterlife, Episode: s04e19 Some 38th Parallels, F/M, M/M, Medical Procedures, Minor Character Death, Sexual Situations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-01-23 13:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18550378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieDawn/pseuds/PrairieDawn
Summary: Radar becomes attached to a patient.  Hawkeye suffers a personal crisis.





	1. In which Radar solves a problem, and Hawkeye finds one

**Author's Note:**

> Episode 5 of Welcome to 1951.
> 
> This episode occurs concurrent to the previous, while Peg is on the road to Ottumwa.

BJ Hunnicutt stood at the far end of the operating room, a Private Phelan’s skull cracked in front of him, a physician from the future hovering beside him. “You check to see if your kit’s powered up yet?” he asked, for the third time in as many hours.

Bones shook his head while leaning forward to watch BJ work, careful to keep his shadow from obscuring the wound. “Spock managed to rig a power converter, but it will be at least twelve hours before the regenerators are charged.” He took another look at the medscanner’s screen, then turned it to face BJ. “Looks like you’ve got one last bleeder, running alongside the internal capsule.” 

BJ peered at the screen for a moment, orienting what he could see there with the mess in the kid’s head. They might not have access to the nearly miraculous healing devices Bones had brought with him from the future, but the medscanner had already shortened the length of surgeries and probably led to a few life saving catches. “I see it,” he murmured.

“Can you get to it?” Bones asked. 

“Think so. Can you hold the light?”

“That good?”

“Mhmm.” Bones might be a gifted surgeon in his own time, but it hadn’t taken long for him to settle into a less hands on role at the 4077th while he learned how to use the techniques and materials available to him. They found themselves putting him to work as a sort of combination technological consultant and glorified corpsman, if only because he was better at reading the medscanner screen than the rest of them. BJ found the deep bleeder and cauterized it, but he wasn’t convinced the repair would hold. “All right, best I can do. It’ll have to hold him until your kit’s got power.”

“I can’t do a whole lot more than you have. Nervous tissue takes specialized equipment I don’t have with me.”

“I’m going to close. Who wants the scanner next?” BJ addressed the room.

Hawkeye raised his voice. “Dibs!” Bones snuck another peek at BJ’s work, then made his way around the gurneys to the other side of the room to stand next to Hawkeye with the scanner. “You know I figured it out?,” Hawkeye continued, “All the work I’ve done, divided by the time I’ve spent in the army. Comes to a nickel an operation. Sure you don’t still need this, BJ?”

BJ told him, “It’s a nasty head wound, but I’ve done what I can. I’m going to close.” 

“They’re getting worse all the time,” Hawkeye muttered. “Thanks, Bones. You want to scan these lungs for me? I’ve got the bleeders, but I think he may have inhaled something.”

BJ turned his attention to closing Private Phelan’s head wound. Once he was as stable as he was going to get, BJ unhooked his jar of fluids from the IV stand and looked for a corpsman to help move the young soldier to Post Op. Father Mulcahy waited patiently and out of the way near the door. “Gimme a hand here, will you Father?” BJ said.

Mulcahy took his position at the foot of the gurney. “Say the word…”

“Go.” They backed through the door and nearly into Corporal Klinger. “Hold that door for me would you?” 

Klinger stopped them before they could finish moving the patient. “Post Op’s all jammed, sir.”

“Let’s put him against the wall, Father,” BJ said, sliding the gurney as close to the wall as he could. Klinger held the IV bottle. The wounded had been coming in fast and hard lately, the result of a panicked push from both sides, fed by the feeling that something bigger than switched around stars was waiting around the corner. Men like Coner, throwing young men into danger for even less cause than usual in this war made matters worse.

“We ain’t got one free bed. You’d think we were a motel,” Klinger complained. “And with Radar working on the radio all the time, I’m swamped.”

“From what I hear, every word we catch from,” he chucked his head skyward, “Up there, gives us a bit more idea of what we’re going to be up against.”

“Yeah, for all the good it will do us. I’ll get an IV stand.” Klinger passed the bottle to BJ and disappeared into Post Op. 

“Another boy from the 43rd?” Mulcahy asked.

“Colonel Coner’s outfit. He got hit in one of the Colonel’s famous retrieval sweeps.” BJ’s voice betrayed his contempt.

Klinger came back through the swinging doors. “No more stands, Doc. What now?”

BJ looked around the small hallway. “Get a hammer, we’ll nail it to the wall.”

“I wish I had your brains,” Klinger quipped.

“I wish I had your beauty,” BJ returned, grateful for Klinger’s good humor.

“There is that.” Klinger rushed away again in search of that hammer.

BJ looked back to catch Mulcahy with a bemused half smile on his face. The priest looked down at the pale face of Private Phelan and his smile faded. BJ picked up his mood. “Our friend Colonel Coner specializes in trading warm bodies for cold. He’d send a whole division behind enemy lines just to pick up what used to be one human being.” He handed the IV jar to Mulcahy.

“Some awful funny people running this war,” Mulcahy sighed. 

BJ nodded and squeezed the priest’s arm. “Sometimes I’m sorry I bought tickets for it. I’ll see you in a bit.” Tickets or no, the war seemed likely to get a lot worse before it got better. He returned to the operating room. They’d been working for nearly twelve hours in a row again, and when that happened, Hawkeye tended to get silly and Frank tended to get flustered. Hawkeye seemed to have his patient well in hand and his mind occupied flirting with Nurse Able. McCoy had temporarily disappeared, presumably into triage. There was a tink, and a grunt of annoyance as Frank let something metal slip from his fingers to the floor. “Need a hand, Frank?” BJ offered, hoping to limit the damage the man could do.

Frank tensed at the scrutiny. “I don’t need a hand from anyone,” he snapped.

“His own two lefts are enough,” Hawk opined, less than helpfully. BJ shook his head minutely, warning him off.

Frank was an adequate surgeon at his best, but BJ had rarely seen him at his best. He was selfish, whiny, intentionally cruel, and the unit would be better off without him, but at this moment he was in charge of a patient who didn’t deserve to suffer for his incompetence. BJ pitched his voice low, almost gentle. “Mind if I watch?” he said, settling onto a stool beside Frank and retying his mask.

“Makes me no nevermind,” Frank said. “How come that Bones never offers me a look at his fancy machine?” he complained.

“Maybe because he thinks you’ll steal it,” Hawkeye said.

“Maybe because when he offers, you never take him up on it,” BJ corrected. “He knows you don’t like him and his friends. Why would he volunteer?”

“Well, I’d just like to be included some time,” Frank whined. “Colonel Potter, I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“And what might that be?”

“Trash. We’ve got a mountain of it right outside the camp.” Frank sounded like he was winding up to one of his diatribes. Well, it was better than letting himself get flustered.

“I hardly think this is the time to be worried about our garbage, Major,” Potter said.

“Cap’n Hunnicutt.” Radar’s voice caught his attention and he took the opportunity to extricate himself, now that Potter was keeping an eye on Frank. He followed the clerk out to the hall.

“Something’s wrong. The doohickey looks like it came loose from the thingamabob,” Radar said, pulling back the private’s blanket to show where his IV line had come free of the needle.

“Nice catch, Radar. Was his blanket off too?” he said absently while he reattached the line and tucked Phelan’s arms back in under the blanket.

Radar opened his mouth to speak, then frowned. “No sir. I thought—I thought something was wrong and so I looked.”

BJ almost slapped Radar on the back before thinking better of it. “Radar, you might well have saved this kid’s life,” he told him.

“I know,” Radar said softly, then corrected himself. “I mean, really? I mean I thought maybe but I—I didn’t really think of it that way. I just—”

BJ stopped him before he ran himself into the ground. “You did good. Hey, look here for a minute.” He indicated the line running into Phelan’s arm. “This part here is called a cannula. And we call the tube that runs up to the vacuum bottle the line.” He tapped the bottle with a fingernail so that it rang faintly. Radar nodded understanding, mouthing the words under his breath. “Now help me get him to Post Op.”

They waited for a moment while Hawkeye passed through the door with Nurse Able, a weary grin on his face. The two of them made a good pair here, BJ tried to convince himself. They both needed company and more than company, and Able seemed to be able to keep it casual the way Hawk seemed to need. BJ tried not to worry about him too much, but it was hard. Hawkeye was taking the level of uncertainty that had been added to their lives almost as poorly as Radar had. “Go?” Radar said, pulling him out of his distraction.

“Now,” BJ said. They pushed their way through the doors to get Private Phelan into a bed. When BJ turned around to head back into the OR, Radar was still standing at the foot of Phelan’s bed, his hands absently wrapped around the raised frame where the charts hung.

*

Radar was still sitting at the foot of Private Phelan’s bed. Hawkeye checked on the young soldier briefly. He hadn’t been out of surgery all that long, and he was, at best, stable. He resisted the urge to ask Radar what he was doing there. Worrying, it looked like. He moved on to the bed closest to Post-Op, which had been Captain Kirk’s home for the past five days now. Kathy Able had his wrist captured between her fingers.

“And how are you this afternoon, Captain?” Hawkeye said cheerfully.

“As well as can be expected, Captain,” the officer returned. He was sitting closer to fully upright today. “Getting tired of being stuck in bed.”

“Well, you’ll be stuck in bed for at least another two days. I’d say four, but Bones says he thinks he can shorten your recovery time with another pass of that tissue regenerator of his. How are his pulse and respirations, Nurse?”

“Pulse is eighty, respirations twenty per minute.”

Hawkeye thought. “That’s still a bit fast. Are you in pain?”

“I’m fine,” Kirk said.

“I’ll ask your hus—” Some of the wounded lying in Post Op were awake. “I’ll ask your XO. He won’t lie to me.”

“Fine. I’m—six out of ten?”

“See, that wasn’t so hard. Morphine?”

Kirk shook his head. “I need my faculties intact.”

“You’re a stubborn fool,” Hawkeye told him. Spock swung through the door on his crutches, just in time for his regular afternoon visit. “Radar,” He turned back to the clerk. “Could you pick up something from the mess for these two?”

“Yes, sir.” Radar dawdled on his way out the door, looking back at Phelan.

Spock called after as he was leaving. “Arrange the tray as we discussed.”

“Yes, sir!” He spared one last look at Phelan and made for the door. Hawkeye worried a little at how quickly the clerk’s interest in BJ’s patient had grown. Phelan was in rough shape, and he didn’t want to see Radar hurt if the kid didn’t make it.

“I would like to discuss progress on my project, if you would permit?” Spock asked his husband, his bearing carefully professional as well. Hawkeye took his cue to make himself scarce, catching Able by the elbow and drawing the privacy screen around the two of them as he went.

“You busy after?” Able asked.

“Put your name on the bulletin board like everyone else,” he teased. He leaned in a little to smell her perfume.

She took a moment to put away her things. “I could use a little R&R. Give you a nickel,” she offered. 

“That’s the going rate,” he agreed. On his way out, his eye caught the privacy screen and something pinched a little in his chest. He shook his head. Hawkeye wasn’t a long term relationship kind of a guy and he knew it. They both finished their last tasks for the evening and headed for the door. He paused to wait for Able to catch up with him. “So, do you have a license to troll for surgeons, or is that roll with sturgeons?” Oh, he was definitely off his game. Roll with sturgeons?

“Right this way, my dear,” Able said mercifully, guiding him out the door.

“You will be gentle?” he joked, adding his signature eyebrow wiggle. 

“As gentle as you want me to be, Hawkeye.”

They took a detour by the showers. Hawkeye headed back to the Swamp after. With four of them sharing it now, it was uncommon to have it to himself, but BJ would be stuck in Post Op for the next couple of hours at least, and Hawkeye would put a better than even bet that Houlihan planned to invite Bones back to her place for a nightcap. Which left only Frank—and he’d probably be stuck in Post Op too, for a while, catching up on charts.

Able ducked inside, smelling of soap a grade above Army issue and faint rose perfume. He offered her a glass of not quite gin from the still, took a small one for himself. He patted the space next to him on his cot. She took a sip of gin, carefully set down the glass and pulled him into a kiss, light and gentle for only a moment, then harder and more assured. Hawkeye leaned into the kiss, but his mind wandered to the parade of kids he’d sewn back together that day, and more disturbingly, to imagining what might be going on behind the privacy curtain in Post Op—not much, given Kirk’s fragility, but—he forced his attention back to matters at hand, letting his hand wander down to Able’s waist to untuck her shirt and he knew, right then, something wasn’t right.

His head wasn’t in the game.

Able backed off. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t know I’m just not…I’m just not all there today, Kathy.” And there it was. His tongue stumbled over her first name. It had taken him more than a second to remember her name.

“You’re probably just tired.” He wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her forehead to his, then kissed playfully down, first his forehead, then the tip of his nose, a peck on the lips, and his chin. 

Hawkeye pulled away from her to sit back on the cot. “But that’s the thing, I’m not. I’m wound up so tight I couldn’t possibly sleep.”

“Well, how about you just lie back and relax and let me help you along a little?” She reached for his waistband.

To his own surprise, he drew back. “Not—not right now I think. I’m sorry. Can I get a rain check?”

She sighed and drew her finger down his nose. “I guess I can just go back to my tent, alone and lonely—maybe read a romance novel. I’m sure there’s one left in the nurse’s tent I haven’t memorized.” With a last, friendly pout, she stood and tucked her shirt back into her slacks. “Look me up again, sometime, Doctor.” She looked back with a last smile before leaving him in the Swamp, alone with a pair of nearly untouched martinis.

Hawkeye collected the glasses gingerly, considered drinking up the rest of the liquor, but poured it out instead, a libation to the gods of mortification. BJ’s pink shirt had fallen of the chair back where he’d draped it, and lay on the floor. He scooped it up, intending to throw it on the bed, but dropped back onto his own cot instead, still clutching it to his chest. There was just so much he couldn’t do, couldn’t control. Young men being sent into the meat grinder of war to feed old men’s egos. And all for nothing, if they really were bound to be pawns in a bigger war, run he supposed by Coners on both sides with bigger weapons and even less regard for life. 

This—sex—had always been able to make him forget, for a few minutes, where he was, _who_ he was, and just feel, just be lost in his body and another’s. He couldn’t forget, today. What he really wanted today, was to care, to belong to somebody, and that wasn’t something he was going to get, not ever, especially if he could count the days until forever on his fingers and toes.


	2. In which Klinger peels potatoes, Spock confirms bad news, and Potter writes a letter to his wife.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klinger and Radar discuss the war, among other things, and more messages from space are intercepted and translated

Radar slipped into the prep room next to the mess, the small one where he knew Klinger had pulled KP. He needed something to eat. He’d been even hungrier than usual lately, and Klinger wouldn’t begrudge him a snack the way some of the other guys would. He found Klinger peeling potatoes for dinner. He got out his own bread, careful to tie up the bag to keep the ever present bugs out of it. There was some left over possibly barbeque chicken in a half pan on the table. He gave it a sniff. It seemed all right.

Klinger took a break from his work to regard his hands, reddened and wrinkled from the wet kitchen tasks. “The army’s ruining my hands, you know?” he said. “My hands are my best feature.” Radar spread the meatlike stuff on his bread. His own hands were short and stubby like the rest of him, better suited to farm work than assembling tiny radio parts or the feats of medical dexterity he watched the surgeons perform. But Spock didn’t seem to mind that his fingers were sometimes clumsy, and he might have saved somebody’s life today. Klinger kept going with his story. “When I was born, my father says to my mother and says, “Thanks a lot for the eight pound baby nose.”

Radar laughed politely. He couldn’t stop thinking about that soldier. How just because he had been paying a little bit of attention to the right thing at the right time, another person was alive who might not have been. Something itched at him a little about it, though. Klinger kept talking. Something about music and violins and stealing. Radar heard the question mark, but not half the words before it. He shrugged, figuring that was a safe response. “He went out and stole a violin! Stuck it in my crib. I was one week old, what did I know from violins? I started sucking on the bridge. No kidding, I’m not kidding.”

“I believe you.” He slapped the top on his sandwich, still a little giddy about the injured soldier. 

“What’s wrong?” Klinger said.

“What’s wrong, what’s wrong?” Radar replied, unable to wipe a silly smile off his face.

“You look happy that’s all. I never see a happy face in the army outside the latrine.”

Radar was torn between not wanting to be a show off and really really wanting to tell someone before he exploded. “I was helping Captain Hunnicutt with a patient, you know?”

Klinger nodded. “You’ve been doing more of that lately. It suits you.”

Radar shrugged his agreement. “Yeah, the guy’s IV bottle went all SNAFU, so I fixed it up and Captain Hunnicutt says to me, he says to me, “Radar, you may have saved his life.”

“Good for you, Radar. Maybe you should think about becoming a doctor.”

“I ain’t smart like that,” he said.

“Maybe you should think about becoming a nurse, then.”

Radar chuckled. “Klinger, the nurses are smarter than the doctors!”

Klinger smirked into the big stock pot, still peeling potatoes. Radar bit into his sandwich. He was so hungry that it tasted good. “You want to save another life?” Klinger said. Radar took another bite. “Don’t eat that food.”

“What’s wrong with it?” Radar didn’t actually want to know. It wouldn’t make a difference, what else was he going to eat? He took another bite.

“You ever pull kitchen duty?”

“I’ve been lucky.” The Sergeant in charge of KP had said something about him being likely to eat all the food before it could be served. Honestly, he wasn’t that greedy.

“Oh it’s beautiful,” Klinger said, meaning the opposite. “You don’t know the conditions! They paint over the cockroaches. If you ever saw what they put in the hash you’d go screaming into the night.” It was a performance, Radar knew, possibly better than anybody, all the loud joking and big stories, the spoken equivalent of the flashy clothes he wore. Filling a space big enough to hold the war at a little more than arm’s length.

“I don’t care. I saved a guy’s life,” Radar repeated. For a couple of weeks, his imagination whispered. And then what?

Klinger scoffed. “Is he still in the army?”

“Of course.” Though to be fair, the way he looked, he was probably going off to Tokyo and then home.

“Some saving.” He looked down into the potatoes.

Radar set down his sandwich. “You know, when I joined the Army, I didn’t think it would be like this.”

“Don’t look at me, I wasn’t that crazy.”

Radar went on, wistful. “But those guys, they really love what they do. They don’t just go out and fight people. They cure diseases and stop wars and discover whole new places and whole new people ain’t nobody ever met before.”

“I’m sure they met each other before,” Klinger said.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” Radar groused.

Klinger put down the knife. “I don’t believe it. Not for one minute.”

“Sometimes Spock let’s stuff slip when we’re working.”

Klinger rolled his eyes. “Really. You sure he’s not just making up stories to, I don’t know, recruit you?”

Radar’s cheeks heated. “Vulcans don’t lie.”

Klinger spluttered his disbelief. “Everybody lies, Radar.”

“I know he’s not lying.” He hadn’t meant for the conversation to go in this particular direction. “I mean they can’t. Sometimes they can’t.”

Klinger gave him another one of those older brother looks, like he knew Radar was full of something but he wasn’t going to call him on it. This time. “How’s that thing you’re building going?”

“Okay. We’ve got the base built. Spock’s scavenging parts out of the old radio that broke last year. But we don’t have all the special stuff we need. Some of it’s supposed to come by helicopter tomorrow.”

“Heard any more from the space bad guys?” Klinger hadn’t taken the revelation that they were called Klingons well at all.

“I’m not allowed to talk about that with anyone but Colonel Potter. Sorry.”

“Aw come on, give a guy a break. I need to know whether I ought to start working on my summer collection. Speaking of which, did you order the fabric I asked for?”

“I did. I hope it comes in time and it works.”

“I’ll make it work. Count on it.”

“I think it will mean a lot.” He fiddled with the hem of his jacket. “You really think I could go back to school? Become a medic, or something?”

“Radar, you’re a sponge. Maybe you don’t spell so good, but you’ve got a head for figures and you store so much stuff in that brain of yours. Schedules, supplies, trades—what it means when the radio makes that little hitching noise right before it goes out—and what to do about it when it does. You just had lousy teachers is all.”

“I gotta get back. Spock’s going to show me how to make a circuit board.”

“See? You get a decent teacher no telling how far you’ll go. Now get out of here, I’m working.”

*

Spock had been forced to build twenty-third technology using twentieth century tools once before, under circumstances even more dire, but the transmitter circuit boards were proving to push the boundaries of what macroscopic fingers could manage. Due to his own dysphasia, Radar’s ability to translate the visual images stored on the doctor’s datapad into the fine motor movements necessary to build the circuit boards exceeded his own. The young man did not know how to alter those circuits to direct data from the subspace receiver, however. Butcher paper retrieved from the kitchens, covered with sketched design modifications, covered most of the room’s surfaces, were tacked to the walls and lay, unrolled, across Radar’s cot.

The doctor’s instruments and their charger rested under that cot, the better to conceal them and prevent casual theft. “Commander Spock,” Radar said. Spock turned around. Radar’s nose was mere centimeters from the board he was working on. He adjusted the magnifying glass in its clamp. “Can you check this one? I think it’s done.”

Spock pivoted from his own workbench to Radar’s to peruse the completed board. Radar squinted up at him without his glasses, having already discovered that his nearsightedness provided an advantage in this work, as it moved the near point of his vision closer to the eye. “Yes, this one is complete,” he said, taking the delicate device gingerly to place it with another on a high shelf Klinger had installed for the purpose. “How many messages have you intercepted today?”

“Nine. Eight Klingon, and one from the Federation. They’re all encrypted.”

“Let us rest our eyes for a time while we transcribe them for the Colonel.”

“Yes, sir.”

The receiver was always tuned to one of the six channels, five Klingon and one Federation, that had proved fruitful sources of information. When he or Radar detected the shift in the static that heralded a message, they would activate the reel to reel recording device, then Spock would play the messages into the tricorder for decryption at intervals. Like every other task here, it was much slower and more cumbersome than it would have been on the Enterprise. Both men kept silence as the recordings, which sounded no different from ordinary static, were fed into the tricorder.

Radar reached up and flipped off the switch, stopping the transfer of data, then a few moments later the door banged open, admitting Major Burns in an excited state. Burns scowled at Spock and Radar. “Corporal, I need you to give me a detailed inventory of the contents of this hospital’s garbage.”

“Yes, sir,” Radar said.

“Well, hop to it.” Radar stood to walk to the file cabinet.

Burns straightened his uniform. “That’s more like it.” He let himself into Colonel Potter’s office without waiting for an introduction and proceeded to expound upon the trivial subject of the camp’s garbage at a volume that precluded transferring any additional data from the reel to reel.

Radar returned to his seat. Spock regarded him. “Will you suffer consequences if you do not complete the assessment?”

He shook his head. “I did it while you were with Captain Kirk.” He cleared his throat. “I saved a guy’s life today.”

Spock turned to his tricorder to complete the decryption and translation of the intercepted communications that had already been transferred. “Is this the first such occurrence?”

“No, I mean, back in Basic, there was a plane that was gonna hit our classroom, but that was different. The guy’s IV line got unhooked. I just noticed it. That’s all.”

“It is always gratifying, and never trivial, to save a life. Have you had any additional insights into upcoming events that should be included in our report?”

“Nothing I can put into words yet. I can’t do the memory thing with the boxes yet, so I’m just putting reminders in my notebook.” He handed Spock a small book with a battered green cover. The contents were coded in a dot-dash pattern that resembled Morse code, but didn’t follow the expected spacing patterns and translated into gibberish.

“Is this an encryption?”

“Yeah. Tell you later how it works.” He chucked his chin in the direction of Potter’s office, presumably indicating the presence of Major Burns.

“It takes practice and meditation to learn to compartmentalize memory. We can include some practice during your next lesson.”

Radar nodded, then stood again to collect a file folder from the top of a cabinet, reaching underneath one of their schematics to do so. He headed for the door, just as Potter’s voice could be heard calling, “Radar!” Curious, the shields Radar currently maintained had failed to affect his prescience at all, which was both fortuitous, in that he still served as an early warning system, but also meant he continued to get little relief from the disorientation caused by the shifting patterns of probable futures. There must be some modulation that could be employed to filter that data as well, but Spock had not, as yet, discovered it.

A particular tone from Frank caught Spock’s ear and he took his tricorder and stood by the door, listening in case it was necessary to intervene. “You shut up, you little…” Frank said.

Potter responded, “Don’t be abusive.”

“I’m sorry sir, it’s just my nature,” the Major whined.

“Enlisted men have feelings, you know,” Potter continued.

“I keep forgetting that sir.”

“So I’ve noticed. Now, I don’t suppose you’ve noticed that I have a lot more important things on my plate than garbage. Do what you want if it will keep you busy. Just don’t make it my problem.”

“Yes sir!”

Spock managed to get out of the way of the door just in time for Frank to exit, beaming. He caught Spock’s eye and his gleeful expression transmuted into a scowl. He stomped the rest of the way out of the room, as if Spock’s very presence were an affront to his well ordered world. As it probably was.

“I can see you out there, Commander. Come on in. Do you have any new intelligence for me to pass on to the Generals?”

“I will shortly.” He took two minutes to complete the transfer of the data from the reel to reel to the tricorder and ran the decryption protocol.

Per usual, Radar appeared at the door to hold it open for him several seconds before the decryption process was complete. Spock arranged himself on his crutches and entered the Colonel’s office, handing the tricorder to Radar as he did so. Radar ensured that the display was showing the old English translations of the intercepted messages before passing the device on to Potter. The Federation transmission led the list.

Potter read aloud. “…monitoring continued unusual activity across the Klingon border. Stellar cartography insists the star around which the activity persists possesses no M class planets, and yet decrypted chatter suggests the presence of an inhabited Earthlike planet…” He paused. And that’s where, I suppose, we lose the signal.”

Spock noted, “Most of the transmissions we intercept, especially those from Federation vessels, originate from moving ships traversing the edge of our range.”

Potter nodded understanding. “They know we’re here. Your Federation. That’s a good thing, I imagine. Maybe they’ll come to us.”

“Not in the absence of communication from this Earth over a subspace channel. To do so out of mere curiosity would violate the Organian Treaty.”

“For which these Organians would punish both sides, am I right?”

“Precisely.”

Potter continued to read. “The house of Taloq—”

“There are twelve occasionally warring Klingon houses.”

“Lovely. The House of Taloq claims this find for the Klingon Empire, all trespassers will be destroyed, that seems pretty clear there.” He read further down, summarizing as he went. “Ships arriving, supply runs…something about increased Federation patrols. Annexation to proceed as of, and then you’ve included a date here. A translation?”

Spock nodded. “The tenth of May. Nineteen days from today.”

“That’s not enough time.” Despite Potter’s awareness that Radar had predicted an approximate three week timeline for the Klingons to make a move on this Earth, he seemed to sink into a kind of shock at independent confirmation. Radar, behind Potter, shifted from foot to foot.

Spock acknowledged his statement calmly. “No, it is not. But we will continue our work. The transmitter can be completed within two to three days of the arrival of all materials. We will send a formal request for aid from the Federation, and your governments will prepare to resist an occupation for as long as necessary.” He would also send a particular, separate signal to the Enterprise. Regardless of their orders, he was confident that their ship would come for them, and once equipped with a ship, there was a chance of reaching Organia to plead these humans’ case.

“What can we do to resist an alien invasion?” Radar asked out of turn. Potter looked at him, but did not correct him.

“A damaged planet is of far less value to the Empire. There will therefore be a limit to the amount of damage they can inflict from orbit. It will take considerable time to amass ground forces in numbers sufficient to occupy the major cities.”

Potter pressed his fist to his chin grimly. “You’re talking about an invasion of my home, Commander.”

“I am aware.” He considered his phrasing carefully. “The humans I have known are resourceful and tenacious. Your world will survive.”

Radar fidgeted beside them. “Sirs?” he said.

“Yes, Radar?” Potter prompted.

“May I go to Post Op?”

“Spock?” Potter prompted.

“I have tasks I can complete without your assistance. I will send someone for you when you are needed.”

“Thank you, sir.” Radar ducked past both of them and out the door in a hurry.

“What was that all about?” Potter asked.

“I am not certain. He has developed an interest in one of Dr. Hunnicutt’s patients. He may be intending to visit him.”

Potter nodded. “I need to encrypt these messages to send them to Tokyo. Is there anything else you need?”

“Not at present.”

“Dismissed, then.”

*

The door swung shut behind Spock, and Potter watched him through the smeared window pane, taller than Radar but in the same beanie, likely borrowed, his work providing only a slim hope of rescue for him, and an even slimmer one of help for Earth. The paper in his fingers had crumpled without his noticing the fist his hand had become. He forced himself to lay the paper flat on his desk, to smooth it with the palm of his hand. For a moment, he stared without seeing the words. Nineteen days. He pulled open the drawer of his desk so fast the metal rattled under his hand, and he lifted out his stationary and his one time pad. The monotonous but precise process of transcribing the message into code using the one time pad did not settle him as he had hoped it might, but merely gave him the time to think, and that far too much. He lay the encrypted message aside for Radar to send via Morse code to Tokyo.

He needed to write to Mildred. He uncapped his pen, posted it, all the while trying to find the words to say what he needed to tell her. What could he say? What would she believe? What would get past the censors--would a letter even make it to Hannibal, Missouri in nineteen days? There was no way of knowing. 

21 April 1951, and Dearest Mildred--just like any other letter. And then, "I love you." What was there else to say? Enough love for the next nineteen days. 

Then all at once, he found himself crying, just a little, the way he had in silence after taking an enemy trench, the tears slipping down his cheeks like rain. It had felt like the end of the world then too. All these years in the army, and he had never thought that Mildred might die with him. And now, he knew it--My God, he thought, the day if not the hour.

Memories he had struggled to put behind him came to mind unwished for, bodies, thin and naked, reports of prisoners being sorted for slave labor, the elderly, the fragile, the children discarded, the young and strong used until they died. His heart broke then, not for Mildred, but for his grown and half-grown grandchildren who would live long enough to suffer. He’d fought more than one war to save his children and other people’s children from living as the slaves of tyrants—was that all in vain now? Even in the best case, he might live to see his world fought over like a prize and most likely broken in the fighting. It was enough to make a man his age want to give up. But he wasn’t that man, he reminded himself wearily. There had to be a way through this. Had to.


	3. In which Phelan takes a turn for the worse.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Private Phelan's condition takes a turn for the worse. BJ and Hawkeye have a heart-to-heart.

BJ sat at the small desk in the corner of Post-Op, catching up on the nurses’ notes on their current patients. Kirk was sleeping again, as he tended to after Spock’s debriefings. He chuckled at his pun in spite of himself, despite the fact he knew nothing so energetic could possibly be going on behind the privacy curtain. After Spock informed Kirk of the day’s radio intercepts, he ought to say. He sobered immediately. He heard Radar’s quick footsteps and raised his head. “Captain Hunnicutt, sir!”

“What is it, Radar?”

The kid stood in front of him, wringing his hands, catching his eye and then looking at the floor, the lights on the walls, the edge of his coat. Anywhere else. “Something’s wrong with, with the patient. Private Phelan I mean. Can you come?”

“’Course I can, Radar.” He set down his pencil and followed Radar to Phelan’s bedside. “You don’t need to keep watch all the time, you know. The nurses and I have matters well in hand.” While he spoke, he checked the soldier’s reflexes. “Phelan! Phelan, can you hear me?”

There was no response. “He can’t hear you,” Radar said.

“Thanks, I noticed.” The boy’s corneal response was still intact, but a twist to the inside of his elbow got no response at all. He checked Phelan’s blood pressure and pupils. “I don’t like the look of this. Go get Hawkeye. Fast.”

Radar took off at a run. Phelan’s pulse was forty five, his blood pressure one seventy over forty. Classic Cushing’s signs. It looked like they’d have to go in again, release the pressure, see if one of the bleeders had opened up again. And they needed to do it quickly.

Radar returned in less than two minutes with both Hawkeye and Bones in tow. Bones took a seat on the opposite side of their patient, medscanner and datapad in hand. “Sorry to bother you guys,” Radar said.

“It’s okay Radar. I wasn’t doing anything interesting, more’s the pity,” Hawkeye said.

“Speak for yourself,” Bones grumbled.

Hawkeye crouched beside BJ, wrapping fingers around one of Phelan’s too-pale wrist. “How’s your patient?” he asked.

BJ looked to the end of the bed, where Radar was still standing, his hat off and crumpled in his hands. He acknowledged the kid with a nod. “He’s really Radar’s. He alerted me to the change in his condition.”

Radar shrugged. “I had a hamster back home got the same look in his eyes when he wasn’t feeling good.” It had the feel of his evasions of habit, but if McCoy wasn’t going to call him on it, neither was BJ.

BJ took the data pad from McCoy. ICP was 38. No question about it then. “Intracranial pressures too high, Hawk. We might have to have to go back in, put in another burr hole. One of those bleeders might have opened back up. What do you think, Radar?”

“What, me?” Radar said.

“Yes, you. I’m serious. What do his chances look like if we do surgery?”

“Um.”

“Take your time, son,” Bones said.

Radar chewed his lip. “Don’t know. Better than if you don’t, I think.”

“Well that settles it, then. You up to joining me, Bones?”

Hawkeye smirked. “Sure, pick the guy with the magic screen that tells you where all the bleeders are. I’m not jealous. Radar, that hamster you had, he live?”

Radar shrunk a little. “No, sir, he didn’t.”

Hawkeye put on his cheeriest false smile and slapped Radar on the shoulder. “Well, lucky for this guy we’ve got BJ and Bones to operate, fix him right up. You go get yourself some lettuce. Or better yet, see if that tissue regenerator is up and running yet.”

“It’s way too soon, sir,” Radar protested.

“Will it have gotten enough juice we can use it on one patient?” BJ asked Bones.

Radar jammed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe. I’ll check on it while you prep him. Meet you in surgery in fifteen.”

“See you there.”

*

Radar followed Bones back to the radio room, half jogging beside the taller man. When they arrived, Radar pulled the charging device out from under the bed and detached the device Bones needed, carefully replacing the tiny panel Spock had removed to access the power converter. “You think it will be enough?”

Bones nodded. “It will give me about ten minutes of continuous use. I should be able to restore vascular tissue, but I can’t restore damaged brain tissue. He might not wake up.”

“I understand, sir.” An awful lot of guys who got hit in the head didn’t wake up. Sometimes they got sent to Tokyo in hopes the doctors there could fix them up, but some of them were dead people who had just forgotten to stop breathing.

Spock looked up from his own task. “Gentlemen?”

Hawkeye paused in the doorway. “One of the kids in Post Op needs more surgery. Head injury. We’re hoping a couple of passes with the tissue regenerator will stabilize him.”

“Is this the young man whose IV line you assisted in repairing, Radar?”

“Yes, sir.” 

“He’s taken a bit of a proprietary interest,” Hawkeye explained on his behalf.

“So I see.” The alien regarded him calmly. “You may take the day. Until the patient is out of danger.”

Radar hadn’t known just how badly he wanted to be back where he could keep an eye on his wounded soldier, _the_ wounded soldier, until Spock gave him permission to go. “Thank you, sir!” he said, then realized he probably ought to protest. He was needed here where he could help with the circuit boards.

“Spock knows you’ll be useless with worrying if he keeps you here,” Bones said. Radar’s indecision must have been all over his face. “Come on, I need to scrub in.”

“Can I go in the operating room with you?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Sorry, sir.” Radar spent the surgery watching through the greasy window glass and trying to see forward, in case he could tell them something that would help. There was a sort of pretending he was supposed to practice, imagining gold lines of light, like thread spun out of sunshine, connecting him to all the people he cared about most. He’d been surprised to find one connecting him to Private Phelan, since they’d never spoken and barely touched, only once, when he’d found the detached IV. There was no certainty along Phelan’s thread. It was as unsteady as unshuffled cards or unthrown dice. He might live, at least until all the threads disappeared into that roiling, opaque smoke that hid everything more than a handful of weeks ahead, or he might not, and at this very moment there was nothing he could do to help or hinder. That fact didn’t keep his nose from being glued to that window for as long as it was going to take.

*

BJ sat on a camp chair, leaning over a bucket of soapy water, washing his argyle socks. They were a gift from Peg, along with three other pairs residing safely at home in San Francisco, a memory of their first Christmas together, and he washed them with the kind of sensual care and attention he used to give to watching Peg’s hair. Hawkeye sprawled nearby, long legs sticking out into the cluttered space between their beds, looking twitchy, agitated, like he was pretending not to be upset about something. “Should we ask some people in or should we be boring on our own?” BJ asked.

“Whatever,” Hawk said, 

“You’re not drinking?” BJ reached for the martini glass with his free hand and took a sip, surprised at how quickly he’d adapted to the rotgut Hawkeye generously referred to as gin.

Hawkeye replied, mock breezily, “I think I’ll stop for a while. I’ve been getting some nasty notes from my liver.” He pointed at the socks. “I’ve never seen you wear those.”

“Oh, I never do,” BJ told him. “If I wear them, they get dirty. If I keep washing them they stay clean forever.” He would like to, and might yet, stretch one of them, clean and soft, up over his feet after a shower. He imagined it sometimes as he was sliding into bed, an indulgence he hadn’t yet taken, but was holding in reserve against a time of greater need. Maybe, maybe in about three weeks. He could go to his last stand in soft, clean argyle socks. For now, it was enough to wash and hang them, as if he were in his bathroom at home, and they were hung up next to a pair of Peg’s hose. “They remind me of better times. Argyle socks, angora sweaters, Woody Herman, fumbling in rumble seats--”

“Rumbling in fumble seats,” Hawkeye joked, but he caught BJ’s expression and stopped himself. The fingers of his right hand fidgeted at his side. “You really love Peg, don’t you.”

“More than my life.” He swallowed. “The thought that I might die out here—Hawkeye, the thought that _she_ could die back home, with Erin and I won’t be there to protect them—I just don’t know. If I thought I could jump into the South China Sea and swim home to them I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

“I guess I’m lucky I’m not attached,” Hawkeye said as though he meant the opposite. “Hey. What do you think of Nurse Able?”

You’re attached, Hawkeye, BJ wanted to say. I’d face down North Koreans or alien monsters for you any day of the week. Will. But he didn’t. “Why, thinking of settling down?”

“Not me, no. I’m not the kind of man anyone would settle down with. Good for a laugh or a port in a storm, but not for the long haul.” His chuckle was bitter.

“Is that what you think you are?” BJ prompted.

“Well I’m certainly not made for the kind of love poets write about. Not like you and Peg.” He chewed his lip. “Or Spock and Jim.”

BJ finished hanging the socks and crossed to sit on Hawkeye’s cot, next to him, so his leg pressed up against Hawkeye’s side. “What’s going on here?”

“I had Kathy in here earlier. Alone. No Bones and no Frank. And I couldn’t.”

“Couldn’t what?”

“The big couldn’t.” Hawkeye stared at him as though he could communicate with his eyeballs alone. 

BJ got it. “Oh, that couldn’t.”

“Maybe I was trying too hard. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough. Maybe it was her perfume. Maybe it was mine.” He sighed. “The worst part is I’m not sure I wanted to, at the end.”

“Now that doesn’t sound like you at all.”

Hawkeye reached back to let his hand hover over BJ’s back, rested it on his shoulder for a fleeting second, and pulled it sharply away. “Do you have any regrets?”

“Come on Hawkeye, why would you go and ask that?”

Hawkeye bit his lip and winced. “I mean about that one time, in the supply shed. We’d both had a bit more than we should have—”

“That we had. Are you asking if you took advantage of me?”

“No. No, not exactly. I mean, you’ve got Peg. We’ve got jokes, and the swamp, and that—I hate to admit it, but it was going through my head when. When I sent Kathy back to her tent.”

Heat flashed into BJ’s palms, and his heart skipped, the feeling so akin to fear he might have mistaken it for such had he not felt it before, looking into Peg’s eyes the day she’d finally—finally agreed to meet him for dinner rather than just lunch between classes. “Do you envy Peg and me?”

Hawkeye leaned forward to stare at the floor. “Yeah. Anyone would be crazy not to.” He fisted his hands in his hair, pulled briefly, then covered his face and mumbled into his hands. “I envy Peg.”

And that was a hell of a thing. “I think,” BJ started to say. “I think I might be falling for you, too.”

Hawkeye fairly leapt out of his chair to prowl the limited space in the swamp. “No, you’re not. You can’t. You have Peg. And maybe the rules don’t apply to our _guests_ but they sure as hell apply to folks like you and me.”

“Brothers in arms?” BJ offered.

“I’m not sure I can do that.”

“I think I can. You’ve never had to curb your impulses. Not for long. I’ve had a bit of practice.” And worse came to worst, he didn’t have to. Not to save his marriage. Not if Peg meant what she said on their last night together. But if he gave in to that need, to be with Hawkeye again in that way, entirely, he wasn’t sure he would be able to give him up, assuming any of them lived long enough. He chuckled. “She predicted something like this would happen. Said it wouldn’t be a week before somebody fell for me, and that she didn’t think I could help falling back.”

“And what did she expect you to do about it?”

“Not to fall in love with anyone she couldn’t love herself, if things were different. And not to lie to her.”

“She said that?”

“She did.”

“Did she mean it?”

“Well, you see, that’s where I’m not sure. She did, then. But I don’t know if she’d still mean it if I took her up on the offer.” BJ stood to intercept Hawk’s pacing, caught him when he ran into his chest, and wrapped both arms around him, making sure to tuck the slightly smaller man’s face into the crook of his own shoulder. “I wish we had more time to figure this out, but I’m not willing to make both of us miserable in the time we have by avoiding you.” He dropped a kiss onto the top of Hawkeye’s head.

“And you don’t love Peg any less for,” he scrubbed his face with his hands, an excuse to turn away, “falling for me?”

“Not any less. Maybe even more.” He tipped Hawkeye’s chin up to look into his face. “Now I know you. You get scared, you get stupid. You are not allowed to get stupid on me, you got that?” Hawkeye didn’t immediately answer. “I said you got that?”

Hawkeye let his face drop down against the fabric of BJ’s shirt. “I got it,” he muffled.

“Good. Now, you think you can handle putting your arm around me and trying again to teach me how to knit?”

“I think I’ll have to have both arms for that.”

“Good, less temptation.”

“And a more apt pupil,” Hawkeye said. BJ gave him a playful shove and sat back down on Hawkeye’s cot. Hawkeye took his place beside him, folded up the camp chair one handed, and reached under his bed to pull out his current project and a spare skein of yarn. “Seriously, I’ve seen you tie one handed knots on arteries almost too small to see, and yet casting on seems to be beyond your ken.”

The knitting lesson was interrupted by a knock at the door. Klinger poked in his head. “We’ve got fresh wounded in Pre-Op, sirs.”

“Thank you, Klinger,” BJ said.

“Don’t thank me, thank the Chinese.”


	4. In which the dragon wins a round.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Radar suffers a personal loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, some chunks of cadged dialogue from the original at the beginning of the chapter and toward the end, with BJ and Radar.

BJ led Hawkeye into Pre-Op. He could hear shouting even as he was coming in the door. “Blast these damn needles! What do you people do, grind them on sandpaper?”

“Here, let me take that for you, Doctor,” Houlihan’s liquid-smooth crisis voice could be heard. “Right now I need you on triage.”

“All right, all right.” Bones stumped over to a wounded soldier to shine a light into his eyes.

“Hi, Bones,” Hawkeye said.

“I’m doing the best I can with this antiquated--”

“Let us know when you get a shipment of 23rd century technology. I’m sure it makes war a lot more fun,” Hawkeye snipped.

BJ cut in. “What have we got?”

Bones surveyed the room. “Take that chest wound first, I don’t like the way he sounds. This leg wound next, and the other chest wound as soon as we top him off with blood and plasma.”

“Doctor!” A voice called from behind them. BJ turned. A soldier with an arm wound sat on a gurney. “I want my boys to have the best.”

Bones spun around to snap at the soldier, “What makes you think they’re not going to get it? I’m not in the habit of giving any less, are you?”

“Bones, how long have you been on duty?” BJ asked. The man was even crabbier than usual.

“Long enough.” He pulled out the scanner and stood just behind the soldier, presumably the officer, so its use wouldn’t be immediately obvious.

“Don’t mind him,” BJ told the officer. “BJ Hunnicutt. This your unit?”

“I’m Colonel Coner,” he said, as if he expected to be recognized and, BJ didn’t know, praised for his reckless waste of young lives.

“Oh, yeah, the famous advance man from funeral home procurement,” BJ had to say. It had been a long, long day, he’d been looking forward to some sleep and he just wasn’t in the mood to be conciliatory.

Bones spluttered, which caught Coner’s attention. “What is that thing you’re waving at me?”

“Classified,” Bones said.

“I’m a colonel, I have clearance,” Coner insisted.

“Not for this, _Colonel._ ”

Hawkeye directed Klinger to take an end of the gurney that held the soldier with the chest wound Bones had pointed out. “I’m going to get started on the chest wound. Bones, you with me?”

“Right there.”

Hawkeye approached the Colonel. “Nothing personal Corporal, we just don’t appreciate you making so many dead soldiers out of live soldiers by trying to retrieve so many dead soldiers.”

McCoy made a sound that had the shape of a laugh, but wasn’t. “You should ask Spock about that, sometime.”

Coner said, “Every one of our fallen boys deserves an American coffin.”

Hawkeye peered under Coner’s bandage. “Do me a favor, Colonel. If you find out I’ve died, leave me there in the crabgrass. I don’t want to help you make the cover of Life.”

“Or Death, whichever comes first,” BJ finished for him. “Your patient awaits, Hawk. Bones, anything worth knowing about the Colonel here?”

“Two broken ribs and a hairline fracture near the elbow joint.”

“All right, let’s get an X-Ray for the records,” BJ said. “Margaret?” 

“I’ll take him.” She shooed the doctors away. 

Hawkeye collected Bones and dragged him toward the scrub room. BJ followed. Their long day was fixing to lead into a longer night.

*

Private Phelan had awakened in the morning weak and tired, but able to speak and think and make plans for going home. This war was over for him, and Radar could not say he was sorry about that, though he had to remind himself, while they put together a puzzle beside his bed, not to mention anything about how quickly the Korean War was likely to be replaced by another, far more frightening one. “Okay, now we need a green piece for the sunglasses,” he said.

Danny, his name was Danny, leaned over touch one of the pieces. “Is this it?”

“No, it looks sort of like Italy, but with a low heel.” He’d put this particular puzzle together a few times and had the shapes of the pieces memorized. The shapes were easier to memorize than the pictures on them. “Where were you originally born?” he said. “I mean, as a child.” He wished he could recall the awkward words as soon as they left his mouth. 

“Chicken Falls, South Dakota,” Danny said. “Twenty miles from Mount Rushmore.”

“Oh hey, I was there!” Radar was so relieved to hear Danny didn’t live in a big city that he caught himself giggling. He remembered Mount Rushmore, from back when the Army was nothing more than a new home, one he didn’t quite fit into as well as the other bigger, tougher guys in his unit, but one that got him away from Ottumwa high school and the farm. 

“Yeah?” Danny said.

“Yeah. Army was cleaning out Lincoln’s nose.” Danny handed him a piece. “That’s an earlobe,” he said, brightening. He fitted it into place.

“I can’t wait to get back home,” Danny said. 

“Yeah, me neither. You know one time I called that number to get the time in Kansas City. I listened for over an hour. Really made me feel a lot better, too.” He wouldn’t have told any of the doctors that, it was just too silly. Klinger, maybe. Certainly not Spock, though at least the alien didn’t think he was sillier than any other human. And there was another thing to remember not to talk about.

“What do you miss the most about back home?”

Radar thought. “The grass I guess. Or the sky.” The farm, the chickens and the cows, the one uncle Ed named Edna just to tease his Ma. The smell of the earth after it rained. “Everything.” He shook his head. He didn’t leave on the best of terms with Ottumwa, or at least the little bit of it he knew well. And when he went back, if he made it back, everything would be different.

“Yeah,” Danny agreed.

Potter was walking up behind them. Radar put away his puzzle piece. “Radar?” he said.

“Yes, sir?” he said. He bumped the table a little with his knee as he stood.

“Where have you been hiding?”

“I was helping out with Private Phelan, sir,” he said. “Commander Sp--” he stopped himself from talking about Spock in front of patients. “I have permission.”

“Chopper with supplies for the radio comes in three hours. Have you ordered specimen bottles?”

“Yes, sir, I did, sir.”

“And the VD films?”

“I ordered two new ones, ‘Clean as a Whistle’ and ‘Buy You a Drink, Sailor?’”

Potter nodded approval.

“Also I sent the, the messages…” Potter hadn’t been done talking. The Colonel trailed off. “Sorry, sir. The messages you wanted sent to Tokyo, I sent them by telegraph last night.”

“Good man.” Potter walked around the bed to kneel beside Danny. He took a pulse, looked into the young man’s eyes. “How are you feeling, son?” he asked.

“Okay, sir,” Danny said.

Potter turned to Radar like he expected him to comment. Radar imagined Danny tonight, tomorrow. There were too many possibilities, but better than half had him making it to Tokyo alive, at least. Not much better than half. “He’s going to be just fine,” he said, because Danny could hear him and he didn’t think bad news was going to help his chances any.

“Thank you, Doctor O’Reilly,” Potter said, but his eyes twinkled like they were sharing a private joke Radar didn’t quite get. He touched the puzzle piece Radar was holding. “That’s an elbow,” he said.

Radar nodded. “Show me where it goes?” he said, to keep the Colonel from leaving. “It’s gonna be Jane Russell, see? You oughta sleep for a bit, see if that headache will go away.”

Danny agreed. “I am kinda tired. We can finish Jane Russell later.” 

Radar followed close behind the Colonel until he left Post-Op, then stopped him in the hallway. “I was lying before.”

“When?”

Radar traced the grain of the wood in the doorframe. “When I said he was going to be fine. I mean, I don’t know, not really.”

“Doesn’t look good?”

“Better than a coin flip.”

Potter rocked on his heels, a habit they shared. It made Radar smile a little to see it. He looked to pat Radar on the back, hooked his thumbs into his suspenders instead, and said, “Well, I guess that’s something. I’ll keep a close eye.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Now go on. The Commander could use a hand getting ready for those supplies. I’ll call you when he wakes up.” When Colonel Potter used that tone, there was no use arguing. And he had been away from the radio for most of the last day. He looked over his shoulder at Danny as he left, still uneasy. 

*

Radar set down another plain brown box labeled only “Radio Parts: Classified” on the swept-earth floor of the shed where he and Spock were building the mobile transmitter. A jeep, the seats and back bench already removed, would provide the base, its engine the power supply. 

Spock sat at a worktable made from a wall panel and two sawhorses, pulling out loaves wrapped in brown paper and carefully unwrapping them to reveal spools of fine wire, transistors, jars of powder, and manufactured shapes that Radar suspected had been custom made from their drawings. The last was strangely comforting. The fact that someone had been willing to hand machine those parts in Tokyo, without understanding their function, and get them back to Uijeongbu in a couple of days was a sign to him that they weren’t entirely on their own against the menace lurking in the night sky. 

He chuckled at his own phrasing, earning a raised eyebrow from Spock. Clearly he’d been reading too many comic books. Radar sat down at his own makeshift table to study the circuit diagram in front of him. It felt like the chair shifted beneath him and he startled. He turned his attention back to his work. A sickly, something is very wrong feeling settled in his stomach, making him feel like he might throw up, but instead of running for the latrine he set down the diagram, closed his eyes and chased threads of possibility for a moment until he saw the fraying, breaking strand that led to Danny Phelan. There was no time to figure out what to do. He could hear a clatter behind him as Spock set down his own work and lifted himself onto his crutches. He flung himself out the door of the shed and ran blindly toward Post Op, trusting Spock would follow.

The door slammed open. “Colonel Potter!” he shouted.

“What is it, son?”

He crossed the room to kneel beside Danny’s bed, breathing hard. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

Potter moved him aside, pulled up Danny’s eyelids, checked a pulse. He shook his head. “He might have started bleeding again,” he said. “Get Bones and BJ.”

Radar stumbled away from the bed. He caught a second glimpse of Potter and Danny as he was closing the door, just as Danny began to seize. 

Spock was already standing in the doorway to the swamp. Radar couldn’t see around the taller man, so he stood aside and shouted “Hurry!” as if they wouldn’t already be hurrying as fast as they could. Spock moved away from the door. Dr. BJ and Dr. Bones shot out the door at a run with Radar at their heels.

Potter moved aside for them. Danny lay on the bed, stiff and shaking. Radar forced himself to stay out of the way beside a bed on the opposite side of the aisle. He gripped the bed rail with sweating fingers, only moving to hold the door open for Spock. 

“We’re going to lose him,” BJ said.

Spock approached the bed, “I might be able to stop the seizure.”

Dr. Bones shook his head. “Intracranial pressure is 48 and rising fast. Cerebral perfusion is dropping. You’d kill him outright.”

“We need to get a burr hole in,” BJ said.

“I don’t think—Spock, Potter, get Radar out of here, now!” Bones yelled. He turned his body to block Radar’s view. Potter grabbed Radar by the shoulders and steered him outside. Radar fought him, but the old Colonel was determined and Radar was too sick and dizzy to put up a good fight.

He fell back against the outside wall of the building, Potter beside him. Danny was still alive, there was a chance, a small and fading chance, and then there wasn’t. It took another couple of minutes, after all hope was lost, for Danny’s thread to thin to nothing and break with a sharp pain like an ice cream headache. And that was it. It wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before. He just hadn’t known, hadn’t understood.

“It’s not fair!” He slammed his fists into the wall. He could hear BJ shouting. And Bones. Something crashed inside, probably a chair one of them had thrown. He turned on Spock even though the Commander, even though his friend didn’t deserve it, ran at him hard enough to knock him to the ground. “Why didn’t you stop it? Why couldn’t you—why couldn’t Bones—if you can’t even save one person why are you even here?”

Spock sprawled on the ground beside him, quiet, the only sign of distress a faint tightening around his mouth and eyes. Radar had hurt him, then. He crawled over to each of Spock’s crutches and placed them in his reach. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, his voice too quiet and cracking. He made his way back over to the wall and sat against it, resting his arms on his raised knees and looking up at the pale blue sky. A couple of birds, shadow-dark, flitted past.

He sat for too long. He ought to get back to work. Danny wasn’t the first kid his age to die here and he wouldn’t be the last. BJ slid down the wall beside him. He didn’t bother to look. BJ’s breath left him in a soft rush and his head fell back against the wall with a faint thump, so that they mirrored each other. Worried. Shouldn’t be worried about me, Radar thought. He thought the shield thing back up around him—must have lost track of it when Danny—he was not going to cry.

“We did everything we could, Radar,” BJ said.

Like he didn’t know that. “He had a really good chance, and he looked, you know, smiling and talking like he was going to be okay. How could he just die?”

“There’s not much more to it,” BJ said.

“It’s not fair,” Radar said again.

“Fair’s the last thing it is.”

“You operated on him twice.”

Three times, BJ didn’t say. “There was just too much damage. I could give you a lot of medical reasons, but understanding doesn’t make it less painful.” 

Radar nodded. There was something behind how he said “damage” that made Radar glad of the space between them. “Is Commander Spock okay?” 

“He’s fine. He’s pretty tough.”

Radar stared back up into that cloudless blue sky until the brightness of it made spots in his eyes. It made him feel ungrateful. “Is he mad?” 

BJ shrugged. “Does he get mad?”

Radar didn’t dignify the question with an answer. “We, me and Danny, got to be friends in just a few hours.”

“Friends don’t need more.” 

For Radar, usually they did. Good friends, anyway, not friends who were bosses or parents or just putting up with him because he was good at getting them stuff. “Gee I hope I don’t cry again.” The tears were already filling up his eyes.

“No shame in it,” BJ said. 

Easy for him to say. “When was the last time you felt like crying?”

BJ turned to face him. “What time is it?”

Radar looked down. BJ was wearing clean fatigues, like he’d gone to change clothes before coming out here. There was blood on his boots. He waited for BJ to get up and leave, but he didn’t. Radar tapped his head against the wall a couple of times to clear it. “BJ, how well can you keep a secret?”

“What kind of a secret?”

Radar squished his bottom lip between his teeth. “A treason kind of a secret. You can’t tell anybody.”

“Why are you telling me then?” BJ asked.

Radar ducked his head. “I called your wife.” BJ’s twinge of fear mixed with what might be guilt surprised him into silence.

“When?” BJ asked.

“Couple days ago. I told her to take the baby and go to my mother’s house.”

“Why?”

Radar steeled himself. “You gotta promise not to tell. Not even Hawkeye.”

“All right.” BJ’s hands were locked together in front of him. 

“The aliens. The bad guys. They’re gonna blow up San Francisco.” BJ’s shock was so sudden and sharp it was hard to tell it wasn’t his own. Radar scrunched his shoulders and looked away. 

BJ took a long time staring out at the yard before he spoke. “Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure.”

“Do you know if she left?”

Radar shook his head. He hadn’t made any other unauthorized calls since that nightmare. “No. I’m gonna try to call my Ma later.” BJ said something about getting radio time to call his parents in San Francisco. “Your parents live in San Francisco too? I didn’t know!” His eyes threatened to make him cry again. “I’m sorry. How come you ain’t got any mail from them? You’ve been here for months!”

It was not the right question to ask. BJ shook his head. “We’re not close,” he said. “Maybe Peg called them.”

“Maybe,” Radar said. He wasn’t hopeful. It wasn’t that kind of a day anymore.


	5. In which the trash gets taken out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coner gets his comeuppance, BJ thanks Hawkeye for the gift, but the realities of war, present and future, still weigh on everyone.

There was nothing more BJ could do for Private Phelan. The boy was wrapped snugly in a body bag to go on the next truck to Tokyo and on home, to be buried with one of those American flag draped coffins Colonel Coner valued so much. He strode across the yard toward the supply shed, where Frank was shouting at a bunch of Korean men about garbage.

Hawkeye met him on the way. “Whatever they bid, add five bucks,” he said.

“What do you want the garbage for?”

Hawkeye grinned, his mouth full of mischief even if his eyes were too sad to pull off the look. “You’ll see.”

BJ hazarded pulling him into a comradely one armed hug, the most he could manage out in public. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. Did you go see Kathy?”

“I did not go see Kathy!” Hawkeye protested. “Cast doubt on my virtue, why don’t you?”

“What virtue?”

“I don’t want all this virtue. You can have it.” He realized what he’d said and stopped still in the middle of the yard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I know.”

Hawkeye turned BJ to face him. “What’s up? You don’t look so good either.”

BJ sighed. “We lost Phelan. Radar’s taking it hard.” Hawkeye accepted the half truth without comment and BJ breathed a silent sigh of relief. “You headed to Post-Op?”

“Yeah. PT with Kirk. We’re hoping to get him out of that bed tomorrow.”

“We moving him to quarters?”

“Bones and I think two or three days, barring complications. We’ll put him in the VIP tent with Spock. Give Klinger his space back.” They reached the door to the supply shed and Hawkeye slapped him on the back by way of goodbye. BJ followed his retreating shape for a few seconds before joining the auction.

*

“Coffee?” BJ asked the table at large.

“None for me. Army coffee has made me a soprano,” Hawkeye grumbled. To be fair, he was feeling a bit more sanguine about his difficulty than he had been, but he had not yet run out of the innuendo he’d spent part of the night constructing while lying awake, and it was a shame to waste it.

Colonel Potter said, “Please,” without looking up from his book. “Listen to this. The fastest amputation was performed by R. Liston in 1801 without an anesthetic. It took 33 seconds and cost the assistant three fingers by his master’s saw.”

Bones looked up. “I remember reading about that. The operation had a three hundred percent mortality rate. Both the patient and the assistant died of infection and a spectator died of fright,” Bones noted. He took a swig of coffee and grimaced. 

Margaret leaned into him, a gesture midway between affectionate and possessive. “Why am I not surprised?” She held her coffee near her face with both hands, preferring to imbibe its warmth by osmosis. Probably the best way to imbibe, to be honest.

“Morning,” Colonel Coner slid into place on the other side of Margaret. 

“Morning,” Margaret said, more warmly than the man deserved. She scooted closer to Bones to give the Colonel room to sit.

“Major Burns said I’m fit to leave,” Coner told them all.

“Major Burns is an expert on fits,” Hawkeye replied.

BJ returned to the table with coffees and Spock’s tray. Spock was right behind him. The two of them took the remaining places at the table, Spock leaning his crutches up against the table’s end.

“You all right, S--Commander?” Bones said.

Coner blew on a spoonful of oatmeal. “I heard about the Corporal who attacked you. I hope he will be suitably disciplined. Speaking of which, why haven’t you been moved to Tokyo?” He gestured toward the crutches with his chin.

Spock gave Coner a look that would have been withering had the colonel been capable of interpreting it. “The corporal and I have resolved the matter to my satisfaction.”

“I ordered your jeep, Colonel,” Hawkeye said. “It will be here in just a minute.” He was finding it hard to contain his anticipation. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. He forced himself to keep his smile to ordinary human proportions.

“I am starved,” Coner noted, tucking into his oatmeal.

BJ responded with bitter flippancy. “Extracurricular carnage really builds up an appetite.” Spock tilted his head, an indication of agreement, perhaps even solidarity with BJ. BJ went on. “Private Phelan died yesterday.”

“Who? Phelan?” Coner said between bites.

Hawkeye clarified, since Coner barely seemed to acknowledge the loss, “Danny Phelan. Wounded the last time he went out looking for coffin refills.”

Spock fixed him in his gaze. “My clerk was quite distraught. The two had become close.”

“Still no reason to attack a superior officer.” 

“Perhaps,” Spock conceded without conviction.

“I remember that mission,” Coner said. “We retrieved every Joe that bought it on Hill 911.”

“And how many men did you lose?” Potter asked.

“Our losses were insignificant.”

“How many kids in an insignificant?” Hawkeye pressed. If he’d had any positive regard for Coner before, it was entirely gone. 

“Two,” Coner replied, as if unaware of the changing temperature of the discussion. Hawkeye hadn’t spent all that much time with Spock, but even he could tell the man was restraining himself from twisting Coner’s head off. Coner, however, seemed oblivious.

“Phelan makes three.” BJ was not letting the subject go. Good for him.

Coner gestured with his spoon. “We knocked out 15 or 20 Reds, old buddy. That makes my kill ratio 8 1/2 to 1.”

Spock turned away from his breakfast, having apparently lost his appetite. “Colonel, leaving aside your abysmal grasp of arithmetic, in what way are the deaths of these young men to be assuaged by your report that still more young men have died?”

“Reds. Did I hear him call you commander? That’s no Army rank.” Coner shoved out his chin, challenging.

“I am a naval officer on detached duty. And I find your lack of consideration for sapient life appalling.”

“Only took me once to learn the lesson you still don’t seem to be capable of figuring out, sir,” McCoy said, nearly spitting the honorific. 

Spock turned to him. “Doctor, are you referencing the incident on the Galileo?”

“For which I have already apologized, you green—” he forced down a swig of coffee. “Green shirted computer!” Hawkeye resolved to get that story out of him as soon as suitable lubrication could be gotten from the still.

Potter choked back a laugh. The screen door on the mess tent squeaked. Klinger approached their table, almost managing to suppress his wicked grin. “Captain Pierce, Colonel Coner’s jeep is ready, sir. Everything is ready, sir.” He waggled his eyebrows. Hawkeye rubbed his hands together, then planted them on the table.

“Well, I guess it’s about that time,” Coner said.

“Have a nice trip, Colonel,” Hawkeye said. It might have even sounded sincere. Hawkeye doubted it. 

“Yes, I will.” Coner rose and headed out of the mess tent.

Hawkeye got up from his seat as quietly as he could once Coner’s back was turned. BJ gestured to Spock beside him and they both rose as well. “Come on,” Hawkeye said. “Quietly.” Potter followed the three of them out, along with McCoy and Houlihan.

Hawkeye could hear the approaching helo before he could see it. He raised a hand to shade his eyes, then tracked across the sky until he found it, the large teardrop shaped load dangling below. He waved to the pilot, just the two fingers that were shielding his eyes, even though he knew Smilin’ Jack couldn’t see him from that distance.

“What’s going on, Pierce?” Potter said.

Hawkeye just turned to him and smiled. Coner took his seat in the jeep. The helo reached its destination, lowered slightly to hover diectly ove rthe jeep, and dropped its load. Garbage, all of it kitchen trash from the previous couple of days, rained down on Coner, leaving him half buried in a mixture of mud, old gravy and vegetables half gone to slime.

“Beautiful! A Tintoretto in barf!” BJ exclaimed.

Potter clasped his hands behind his back. “I didn’t see any of it, but I loved it.” He walked away in hopes Coner would be too distracted to notice his presence, plausible deniability intact.

“You’re a pistol!” Klinger said. McCoy giggled behind him.

“You all are disgusting.” Houlihan pinched her nose and disappeared back into the mess tent with McCoy. 

Coner wiped sludge off his face. “When I find out who did this, I will have them up on charges!”

The group scattered then, though once BJ and Spock met back up with him on the opposite side of the mess tent, Spock said, “Will this display change the colonel’s behavior?”

“Probably not,” Hawkeye admitted. “But it made me feel a bit better. Klinger too. He offered to clean him up after so no one asks Radar to do it.”

Spock nodded. “We must find a means by which to reward him suitably.”

“The worst bit was going through all the garbage last night. We had to get anything heavy or sharp out of the load—I may be willing to risk a court martial to humiliate that bastard, but I don’t want to kill anybody. Not even him.”

“Understood. I must return to my work.” Spock swung away toward the radio shed on his crutches.

BJ grinned at Hawkeye and bumped him with his elbow. “Buy you a drink, sailor?”

It was as clear an invitation as he was going to get. Hawkeye looked him over, tall and blond and smiling and more home than he’d seen in a long time. He felt a stirring that he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to fully acknowledge just yet. Spock disappeared into the newly built shed, one of the many reminders that they no longer had the luxury of time. If they’d ever really had it.

BJ had already turned to walk back to the Swamp. Hawkeye jogged after, turning the impulse to wrap an arm around his waist into a more comradely arm around his shoulders, a gesture more appropriate for public consumption. BJ leaned into the embrace as much as he dared.

Once they were behind closed doors, or at least closed tent flaps, they tumbled onto BJ’s cot, laughing. BJ planted a wet kiss on Hawkeye’s forehead. “You marvelous fool! If word gets back you were responsible you could get court martialed!”

“What? And leave this sunny vacation spot for a nice safe prison cell?”

“Come here!” BJ’s voice sounded rough, strained. He scrubbed long fingers into Hawkeye’s hair and planted more kisses, soft and warm and urgent across his forehead and temple. 

Hawkeye brought his arm down to where BJ’s shirt had ridden up, felt the warm skin of his back under his fingers. BJ shuddered. Hawkeye tilted his face up to meet BJ’s lips and tasted salt, met his eyes and saw them shining with tears. The shudder broke into a sob.

He pulled BJ into his arms, leaning back a little to tuck his head into the hollow of his throat, and rocked, gently. “I’m sorry,” BJ said.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Hawkeye murmured, not sure what BJ was apologizing for but it didn’t matter. Dust glittered in a beam of morning sunlight that had crept in through the space between the shades.

BJ wiped his face with the front of his shirt. Hawkeye ached to explore the revealed expanse of skin, cute dimple of bellybutton surrounded by golden softness over firm muscle, but not yet. Not until he understood. BJ sniffled and kissed along the line of Hawkeye’s jaw before looking back up at him, lips pressed together in a sad smile. “I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

“I’m in love with you and Peg and I thought this would be easy, just keep my mind on right now, but I just can’t.”

“It’s okay.” He told himself that was true.

BJ shifted in his arms to pull Hawkeye in closer. “I’m worried about Peg.”

“I understand. She’s got dibs.” His chest felt tight, but he wasn’t going to cry, he promised himself.

“Not like that,” he said. “I really shouldn’t be telling you this. You’re not exactly known for your ability to keep a secret.”

“I can keep a secret!”

“Radar could be in serious trouble if you let this one out of the bag, and I don’t think—it’s too big, Hawkeye.” His face went pale. “I wish I didn’t know.”

Hawkeye pulled away so he could hold BJ by the shoulders and look him in the eyes. “You are the most important person in my life at this moment, and I love Radar like he’s my kid brother, hell, like he’s my own son if I ever had one. I will keep this secret.”

“You can’t drink either. Except with me.”

Hawkeye looked at the still and nodded. “I ought to give it up anyway.”

“You won’t. Not as long as we’re here.”

Hawkeye frowned. I won’t promise not to drink then. But I’ll promise not to get drunk.”

“Radar thinks those aliens are going to nuke San Francisco.”

“Radar thinks?”

BJ nodded. “He called Peg to warn her. To tell her to get out.”

Hawkeye’s hands and feet turned cold and clumsy at the ends of his arms and legs. His insides twisted. “I’m sure Radar’s just overreacting. He’s got quite an imagination.” That had to be it.

“Maybe you’re right.” BJ didn’t sound convinced. “She doesn’t know him. She won’t just drop everything and leave our home on the advice of a kid.” Hawkeye wasn’t sure if BJ thought that was a good thing or not.

“Would you want her to?”

“I don’t know.” He let his head drop back onto Hawkeye’s shoulders. “You realize we’ve gotten no news from home in a week? Radio’s been tied up with official business, mail hasn’t come, even the rumor mill has dried up.”

“You think they’re rioting in the streets on account of the stars moving around? I bet it’s an astronomical footnote by now.” Hawkeye was trying to be reassuring, he was. It came out all wrong.

“They’ve got no idea what’s coming. Peg’s got no idea what’s coming and I can’t even tell her. If I wrote a letter, would she even get it?” BJ scrunched closer, bunching up his knees on the bed, as though he could crawl into Hawkeye’s lap like a child waking from a nightmare. “I don’t even know where to send it to.”

Hawkeye ruffled BJ’s hair, cupped the back of his head with his hand. “Let’s do it.”

“What?”

“Write her a letter. You and me, together. Let her know we’re both coming home to her and we’ll find her and Erin wherever they are. We’ll give it to Radar. He’ll know where to send it.”

“Both coming home to her?”

“BJ.”

“What, Hawkeye?”

“I’m in love with your wife.”

BJ’s face went blank with surprise for a second, and then he busted out laughing, almost as hard as he had been when they’d stumbled into the swamp. “I know,” he said.

“Does she?”

BJ nodded. “I’ve dropped a few hints, yeah.” He took advantage of his position half on Hawkeye’s lap to push him over so that they lay together, BJ’s head resting on Hawkeye’s chest. The bunk creaked a protest. BJ slid a hand up under Hawkeye’s shirt. “I’ve missed this, though.”

“Missed what?”

“Holding someone. Feeling—” he stopped to stroke circles into the small of Hawkeye’s back. Hawkeye shivered. Parts of him that had been ambivalent took notice and poked into BJ’s ribcage. “Feeling that.”

Hawkeye chuckled. “I think that problem I was having before? Not a problem anymore.” He curled forward to kiss the top of BJ’s head. “In fact, now I have a new problem.”

“I think,” BJ said, scooting up to kiss along Hawkeye’s collarbone, the pressure and movement eliciting a hiss from Hawkeye, “that problem has a solution.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.” BJ nestled in next to Hawkeye. “There’s so little joy here, Hawk. Let me share a little with you. And then maybe I’ll teach you how to seduce my wife.”

“You have a filthy mind, BJ.”

“I don’t think I hold a candle to you, Hawk,” he said, but in a few moments his hands were telling a different story.

*

Radar kept his nose to the grindstone, or at least to the circuit board he was assembling. He could hear Spock behind him, pencil scratching on butcher paper. “I meant to ask you something.”

“What?”

“What happens when people die?”

“I do not believe I understand the question.”

“Do they really go somewhere or do they stop existing?”

“Humans, you mean?”

“Why, is it different for Vulcans?”

“It is. We are able, under some circumstances, to place our essence, our soul if you wish, into another being to carry until we can be returned to our home world and reunited with our ancestors.”

“Oh. So what if you can’t?”

“The essential mental pattern, for all sapient species so far discovered, appears to consist of a complex arrangement of particles in subspace. These persist for some time after death until they can no longer be distinguished from subspace background radiation.”

“So we just fade away?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps our essence becomes a part of the fabric of the universe.”

“Oh.”

“That was not what you desired to hear.”

“Not really.”


End file.
